Makoto Tominaga (1958–) is a Japanese physiologist and medical scientist. After graduating from Ehime University School of Medicine and working as a cardiologist, he earned his doctorate in medicine from Kyoto University. At the University of California, San Francisco, he worked in David Julius’s laboratory on the cloning and functional analysis of TRPV1, a receptor activated by both capsaicin—the compound responsible for the heat of chili peppers—and temperatures above approximately 43°C. This work helped explain how heat and pain are converted into neural signals and formed part of the research recognized by the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. After serving as a professor at Mie University and the National Institute for Physiological Sciences, he continued his research at Nagoya City University, focusing on TRP channels involved in temperature sensation and pain. “Seimei ni totte ondo to wa nani ka: Seizon senryaku no kagi o nigiru ondo sensa no hataraki” examines how animals and plants sense temperature and adapt their behavior and physiology to changing environments.
